Episode 46: Why You REALLY Don’t Want to Have Sex With Your Husband (& How to Fix It)

Welcome to The Loving Truth Podcast where it's all about finding clarity, confidence, and peace in the face of marriage challenges. And now your host, relationship expert, and certified master life coach, Sharon Pope.

Sharon Pope: Hello, loves. I'm Sharon Pope, and this is The Loving Truth. Today I want to talk to you about the sex that you don't want to have. Here's what I'm talking about. Out of more than half a million women that I have helped with my work, I can count on one hand the number of women who have been struggling in their marriages and still enjoyed having sex with their partner. It's so common.

It always surprises me when someone who is struggling in their marriage to the point where they're in the stay-or-go question and they're still enjoying sex with their spouse. It almost never happens and always takes me by surprise. The thing is there's this mindset shift that we need to take place and they can't see their way to a place where they would ever desire their spouse again and then they automatically assume that the relationship is going to have to end.

Some of them will tell me, “When I think about being intimate with my husband, I just cringe or when he reaches for me, I recoil away from him. It just feels like eek.” How does that happen? How do we get from marriage that feels really good where we say “Forever till death” to a place where when he reaches for me, I recoil?

Now sometimes that's a bunch of hurt that has just compounded over the years to these ongoing resentments. That certainly happens and that can absolutely impact your sex life. Also, when we don't trust our partner emotionally, and therefore we don't feel safe, it's really hard to partake in the most vulnerable act we can possibly take, the most intimate act we can take with a partner.

If we don't feel emotionally safe, that's really difficult for most of us to be able to get past. Sometimes we just become so disconnected from each other that we feel like strangers to one another and so of course then intimacy is not going to feel good. Then not surprisingly, when there's an affair, well then there's always this trap of comparison, of knowing that our partner cheated, and then how do I compare to his lover?

That is always a problem. Those are all the things that can lead into the sex that you don't want to have. But that, my friends, is not what we're talking about today. What we're talking about today is the sex that you don't want to have because it's not pleasurable that's why you don't want to have it. First, let's just debunk the myth that men are into sex more than women.

There has been a lot of research that has just flown in the face of that idea and all the ways in which we have miscalculated that. Men might be into sex more as it relates to just the physical act of sex. They might be into sex for the sake of sex more than women, but they're not into sex more than women.

Women are into sex when it's pleasurable for them and when an emotional connection is part of that equation, because many times, most of us as women want sex and are into sex because of the connection that we feel with another human being. We thrive, we seek out that connection. Connection in a woman's life is of paramount importance.

That connection is so critical to us feeling good about our lives. We're always sort of like this heat-seeking missile towards connection. It's not that we are not into sex, it's that it has to be pleasurable and there has to be an emotional connection point in order for us to be into it.

Now, women enjoy sex when it feels good for them. This means we've got to start having some much more open, honest conversations and we've got to talk about things that are going to feel uncomfortable for most of us because, for most of us, we were not brought up in a household or at a time when people actively and openly talked about sex.

It's always going to feel uncomfortable but this is part of what's getting in the way of us having healthy sex lives with our partners. First of all, ladies, in order for this to be pleasurable for you, this is one thing that you can do and that you are ultimately the only one responsible for doing is you have to be out of your head. You cannot orgasm the same time you're thinking about your to-do list. When we are in our heads and not in our bodies, and we are not present for the experience, of course, it's not going to be enjoyable.

Many of us are not used to this. We're used to being productive, getting things done. That's our value. Being there for other people. We have a lot to do, we have a lot that we have on our plate, so that's where we gain our value. But sex is about pleasure. Pleasure, my friends, is not productive. It's not productive at all. You're not going to be able to check a box on any to-do list, but it will help how you show up to check in those boxes. I can promise you that.

We've got to take responsibility for when we're in the moment to actually be in the moment and to get out of our heads and into our bodies. We do not spend enough time really sitting in the physicality of our bodies. We spend a lot of time ruminating, worrying, second-guessing, guilt, and all the emotions, we spend a lot of time in our heads and that is not helpful to a healthy sex life.

Now, the other thing that we do, the reason why it's not pleasurable, I'm just going to say it, we keep leaving the men in charge. We keep leaving the men in charge as if he knows our bodies better than we know our bodies. That is especially true if we don't know our bodies. If we are not comfortable in this god pod that we exist in, then we certainly aren't going to be able to tell and guide someone else in terms of how to be with us, what feels good in our bodies.

How in the world is your husband going to know what feels good in your body if you don't tell him? But we expect men to know the physicality of our bodies better than we do. Because we're uncomfortable talking about it, we oftentimes won't bring it up. That is absolutely keeping us from enjoying sex. Many of you already know this information. For those of you, it might be a good reminder, then some of you may not actually know this and it might be really helpful.

I am not a sex therapist. There are experts on the planet. The three that I love, Emily Nagoski, Emily Morse, and Vanessa Marin. Those three, you can't go wrong. If you want to go deeper with any of this, those are three great resources. But here we go, 50% to 75% of women do not climax through vaginal stimulation. We just don't. We need clitoral stimulation in order to orgasm. But you have to know where your clitoris is.

If your partner wants you to orgasm, they have to know where it is too. But they can't find it if you don't know. If you don't know, they definitely can't know. That's an area that we can do better. The other area is that the average woman takes 12 to 20 minutes to orgasm, where men take an average of one to seven minutes to orgasm. What does that mean? That means you got to get your party started way before his party gets started at least 10 minutes before his party gets started.

We've just got to be open and honest about that. We've got to be able to talk about those things. Because for many women, it’s not that the problem is a lack of desire, the problem is a lack of pleasure. We're not enjoying it. We've got to advocate for ourselves. First of all, we've got to want to enjoy sex. But we've got to stop looking to our partners to make sure that they want us to enjoy sex. Yes, they're a component of it, but I promise you, they're not going to want it more than you. You've got to want to enjoy it.

Then we've got to be willing to talk about what brings us pleasure because we should know our bodies way better than our spouses. We live, breathe, and exist in these god pods for decades at a time. We should know what feels good and what doesn't feel good. Then because our partners are not mind readers, we've got to be able to communicate that to them. Not just leave them in charge and assume they know but then blame them when we're not enjoying it.

I don't think that it's that you don't desire sex. I think it's that we don't desire the sex that we're having. But that doesn't mean that the sex we're having can't evolve to a new place. Think about it like this: it's normal to not crave sex that you don't enjoy just like you don't wake up craving, “You know what I really want today? I want a dry piece of toast. That's what I want. Just toast, no butter, no jam, just white bread toasted, dry.”

No one craves that. Of course, you are not craving sex if you're not enjoying it. But then we make that mean, “Oh, I guess I'm just not a sexual person, that I don't care about sex, or that I don't enjoy sex.” None of that is true. It's the sex that we're having. We're going to change the sex we're having if we want to enjoy it. I hope that gave you something interesting to think about. I'll see you next time. Take good care.

If you're listening to this podcast because you're struggling to decide whether to stay or go in your marriage, and you're serious about finding that answer, it's time to book a Truth & Clarity Session with a member of my team. On the call, we'll discuss where you are in your marriage and explore if there's a fit for you and I to work together so you can make and execute the right decision for you and your marriage. Go to clarityformymarriage.com to fill out an application now.